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Kokuri Baba (Temple Kitchen Hag)

KOH-koo-ree bah-BAH

Kokuri Baba (Temple Kitchen Hag)

Kokuri Baba (Temple Kitchen Hag)

Their soul is listening — speak, and they will answer.

Basic Description

An old-woman yokai illustrated by Edo-period artist Toriyama Sekien in Konjaku Hyakki Shūi. Said to haunt a temple’s kuri (monastic kitchen/quarters), she steals offerings and money from parishioners, desecrates graves to weave garments from the dead’s hair, flays skin, and eats corpses. In Sekien’s image she appears as an elderly woman spinning thread with a cat at her side, often read as satire on clerical corruption and decaying temple morals. Reliable region-specific oral traditions are uncertain.

Folklore & Legends

Sekien’s image and notes are the main sources: an old woman dwelling in a temple kuri who pilfers offerings and ravages graveyards. Later modern ghost-story collections repeat this depiction, adding retellings such as a Yamagata tale of a woman who eats the dead and cannot find repose, or a yokai that devours temple residents. These versions derive from later introductions; solid evidence for medieval or early modern local traditions is thin, and creative embellishment is likely.

Detailed Analysis

Character Profile

This section is our own creative profile for storytelling. It is not historical fact or scholarship.

Rarity
Rare

For more detailed information and diagnosis results about 庫裏に潜む墓荒し婆・古庫裏婆, please click here.

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